BLACHEFAN
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Moon Breath Beat (1980)
Lisze Bechtold created "Moon Breath Beat," a five-minute color short subject, in 1980 while a student at California Institute of the Arts under the tutelage of artist and filmmaker Jules Engel, who founded the Experimental Animation program at CalArts. Engel asked, hypothetically, "What happens when an animator follows a line, a patch of color, or a shape into the unconscious? What wild images would emerge?" "Moon Breath Beat" reveals Bechtold responding with fluidity and whimsy. Her two-dimensional film was animated to a pre-composed rhythm, the soundtrack cut together afterward, sometimes four frames at a time, to match picture with track, she says. The dream-like story evolved as it was animated, depicting a woman and her two cats and how such forces as birds and the moon impact their lives. Following graduation, Bechtold was the effects animator for the Disney short "The Prince and the Pauper" (1990) and principal effects animator for "FernGully: The Last Rainforest" (1992). Now primarily an author and illustrator, she claims many of her characters were inspired by pets with big personalities, including "Buster the Very Shy Dog," the subject of her series of children's books.
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The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980)
The first of director Connie Field's many documentaries, "Rosie" focuses on the women who joined the workforce during World War II in defense industry jobs typically held by men. Inspired by the cultural icon depicted in posters and songs during the war, Field interviews five real-life "Rosies" who describe their work experiences and their reactions to giving up their jobs to returning GIs. The 60-minute documentary combines newsreel footage with on-camera interviews with five Rosies: Wanita Allen, Gladys Belcher, Lyn Childs, Lola Weixel and Margaret Wright. They tell it like it was: harassment, discrimination and all, but clearly remain proud of their wartime accomplishments and the impact their efforts had on women and all society.
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Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2 (1980-82)
Nathaniel Dorsky shot the footage for what would become his silent tone poem, "Hours for Jerome," between 1966 and 1970. He edited that footage over a two-year period. The film's title evokes the liturgical "Book of Hours," a medieval series of devotional prayers recited at eight-hour intervals throughout the day. Dorsky's personal devotional loosely records the daily events of the filmmaker and his partner as an arrangement of images, energies and illuminations. The camera intimately surveys the surroundings, from the pastoral to the cosmopolitan, as fragments of light revolve around the four seasons. "Part 1" presents spring through summer and "Part 2" looks at fall and winter—a full year in 45 minutes. Named filmmaker of the decade in 2010 by Film Comment magazine, Dorsky creates his works to be projected at silent speed, between 17 and 20 frames per second instead of the usual 24 frames per second for sound film. Projecting his films at sound film speed, he writes, "is to strip them of their ability to open the heart and speak properly to their audience. Not only is the specific use of time violated, but the flickering threshold of cinema's illusion—a major player in these works—is obscured."
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Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1980)
Les Blank's hilarious and affectionate homage to "The Stinking Rose" delights slightly wacky devotees or alliumophiles. In their mind, garlic is the benevolent dictator of pungent herbs, always enhancing food rather than dominating it. The rallying cry is "Fight Mouthwash, Eat Garlic." Gastronomic, zestful, tasty and memorable, the film often is screened in "AromaRound" with a pot of garlic butter boiling at the back of the theater.
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The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The much anticipated continuation of the "Star Wars" saga, Irvin Kershner's 1980 sequel sustained the action-adventure and storytelling success of its predecessor and helped lay the foundation for one of the most commercially successful film series in American cinematic history. After a Rebel base is taken over by the Empire, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), with Wookiee Chewbacca and droid C-3PO in tow, flee from the Empire as they speed across the galaxy. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) travels to a remote planet where he begins his training with Jedi master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz), and evil Darth Vader pursues him. "Empire" is considered by many to be the best film in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
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Atlantic City (1980)
Aided by a taut script from playwright John Guare, director Louis Malle celebrates his wounded characters even as he mercilessly reveals their dreams for the hopeless illusions they really are. Malle reveals the rich portraits he paints of wasted American lives, through the filter of his European sensibilities. He is exceptionally well served by his cast and his location--a seedy resort town supported, like the principal characters, by memories of glories past. Burt Lancaster, in a masterful performance, plays an aging small-time criminal who hangs around Atlantic City doing odd jobs and taking care of the broken-down moll of the deceased gangster for whom Lou was a gofer. Living in an invented past, Lou identifies with yesteryear's notorious gangsters and gets involved with sexy would-be croupier (Susan Sarandon) and her drug-dealing estranged husband.
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Airplane! (1980)
"Airplane!" emerged as a sharply perceptive parody of the big-budget disaster films that dominated Hollywood during the 1970s. Written and directed by David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, the film is characterized by a freewheeling style and skewered Hollywood's tendency to push successful formulaic movie conventions beyond the point of logic. One of the film's most noteworthy achievements was to cast actors best known for their dramatic careers, such as Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges, and provide them with opportunities to showcase their comic talents. The central premise is one giant cliche: a pilot (Robert Hays), who's developed a fear of flying, tries to win back his stewardess girlfriend (Julie Hagerty), boarding her flight so he can coax her around. Due to an outbreak of food poisoning, Hays must land the plane, with the help of a glue-sniffing air traffic controller (Bridges) and and his tyranical former captain (Stack). Supporting the stars is a wacky assemblage of stock characters from every disaster movie ever made.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/airplane2.pdf
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The Shining (1980)
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Director Stanley Kubrick's take on Stephen King's terrifying novel has only grown in esteem through the years. The film is inventive in visual style, symbolism and narrative as only a Kubrick film can be. Long but multi-layered, "The Shining" contains stunning visuals — rivers of blood cascading down deserted hotel hallways, disturbing snowy mazes and a mysterious set of appearing and disappearing twins — with iconic performances by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.
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Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
The exceptional life of country music legend Loretta Lynn is traced in this classic biopic documenting her unlikely ascent as a child bride from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, to superstar singer and songwriter. Never shying away from Lynn's professional and personal struggles, "Coal Miner's Daughter" helped set the standard for every musical biography that has followed it. Sissy Spacek earned an Academy Award for her deeply heartfelt and true-to-life performance in the lead role. She is matched by her co-stars Tommy Lee Jones as Lynn's husband "Doo" and Beverly D'Angelo as Lynn's mentor, the late Patsy Cline.
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Norma Rae (1979)
Highlighted by Sally Field's Oscar-winning performance, "Norma Rae" is the tale of an unlikely activist. A poorly-educated single mother, Norma Rae Webster works at a Southern textile mill where her attempt to improve working conditions through unionization, though undermined by her factory bosses, ultimately succeeds after her courageous stand on the factory floor wins the support of her co-workers. The film is less a polemical pro-union statement than a treatise about maturation, personal willpower, fairness and the empowerment of women. Directed by Martin Ritt, "Norma Rae" was based on the real-life efforts of Crystal Lee Sutton to unionize the J. P. Stevens Mills in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., which finally agreed to allow union representation one year after the film's release.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/norma_rae.pdf
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The Muppet Movie (1979)
Muppet creators Jim Henson and Frank Oz immersed their characters into a well-crafted combination of musical comedy and fantasy adventure. Kermit the Frog is persuaded by agent Dom DeLuise to pursue a career in Hollywood. Along the way, Kermit picks up Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, and a motley crew of other Muppets with similar aspirations. Meanwhile, Kermit must elude the grasp of a frog-leg restaurant magnate (Charles Durning). On the road, they encounter assorted characters played by such actors as Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Orson Welles, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. The picture is filled with songs by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher including the popular "Rainbow Connection."
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Manhattan (1979)
Woody Allen combines witty dialogue, the music of George Gershwin, and atmospheric locations -- shot in glorious black and white by Gordon Willis -- to fashion this bittersweet romantic comedy. Isaac (Allen), a neurotic television writer in his forties, is romantically involved with Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year-old student. But things get complicated when he starts to date Mary (Diane Keaton), the ex-mistress of his best friend (Michael Murphy). The film is highlighted by exceptional comedy teamwork that evolved between Keaton and Allen over the course of their six movies together to date, including a dramatic turn for Keaton in "Interiors" the year before and her Oscar-winning performance in "Annie Hall" in 1977.
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Free Radicals (1979)
Born in New Zealand, avant-garde filmmaker Len Lye moved to the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1950. For his four-minute work "Free Radicals" (begun in 1958 and completed in 1979), Lye made scratches directly into the film stock. These scratches became "figures of motion" that appear in the finished film as horizontal and vertical lines and shapes dancing to the music of the Bagirmi tribe in Africa.
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The Black Stallion (1979)
When a ship carrying young Alec Ramsey (Kelly Reno) and a black Arabian stallion sinks off the coast of Africa, Alec and the horse find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Upon their rescue, Alec and horse trainer/former jockey Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney) begin training the horse to become a formidable racer. Directed by Carroll Ballard and based on the Walter Farley novel of the same name, the film was executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola who finally persuaded United Artists to release the film after shelving it for two years. The film's supervising sound editor, Alan Splet, received a Special Achievement Award for his innovations including affixing microphones around the horse's midsection to pick up the sound of its hoof beats and breathing during race sequences. "The Black Stallion" was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for Mickey Rooney and one for Best Film Editing for Robert Dalva.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/black_stallion.pdf
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Being There (1979)
Peter Sellers as Chance, the gardener, tending his shrubbery. Library of Congress Collection.
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer's persona, including the man's cultured walk, talk and even his expensive clothes, and is mistaken as "Chauncey Gardner," whose simple adages are interpreted as profound insights. He becomes the confidant of a dying billionaire industrialist (Melvyn Douglas, in an Academy Award-winning performance) who happens to be a close adviser to the U.S. president (Jack Warden). Chance's gardening advice is interpreted as metaphors for political policy and life in general. Jerzy Kosinski, assisted by award-winning screenwriter Robert C. Jones, adapted his 1971 novel for the screenplay which Hal Ashby directed with an understatement to match the subtlety and precision of Sellers' Academy Award-nominated performance. Shirley MacLaine also stars as Douglas's wife, then widow, who sees Chauncey as a romantic prospect. Film critic Robert Ebert said he admired the film for "having the guts to take this totally weird conceit and push it to its ultimate comic conclusion." That conclusion is a philosophically complex film that has remained fresh and relevant.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/BeingThere.pdf
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Apocalypse Now (1979)
The chaotic production also experienced shut-downs when a typhoon destroyed the set and star Sheen suffered a heart attack; the budget ballooned and Coppola covered the overages himself. These production headaches, which Coppola characterized as being like the Vietnam War itself, have been superbly captured in the documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Despite the studio's fears and mixed reviews of the film's ending, Apocalypse Now became a substantial hit and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Duvall's psychotic Kilgore, and Best Screenplay. It won Oscars for sound and for Vittorio Storaro's cinematography. This hallucinatory, Wagnerian project has produced admirers and detractors of equal ardor; it resembles no other film ever made, and its nightmarish aura and polarized reception aptly reflect the tensions and confusions of the Vietnam era.
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All That Jazz (1979)
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of amphetamines to juggle a new Broadway production while editing his new movie, an ex-wife Audrey, girlfriend Kate, young daughter, and various conquests. Reminiscent of Fellini's "8 1/2 ," Fosse moves from realistic dance numbers to extravagant flights of cinematic fancy, as Joe meditates on his life, his women, and his death. Fosse shows the stiff price that entertaining exacts on entertainers (among other things, he intercuts graphic footage of open-heart surgery with a song and dance), mercilessly reversing the feel-good mood of classical movie musicals.
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Alien (1979)
This film's appeal may lie in its reputation as "a haunted house movie in space." Though not particularly original, "Alien" is distinguished by director Ridley Scott's innovative ability to wring every ounce of suspense out of the B-movie staples he employs within the film's hi-tech setting. Art designer H.R. Giger creates what has become one of cinema's scariest monsters: a nightmarish hybrid of humanoid-insect-machine that Scott makes even more effective by obscuring it from view for much of the film. The cast, including Tom Skerritt and John Hurt, brings an appealing quality to their characters, and one character in particular, Sigourney Weaver's warrant officer Ripley, became the model for the next generation of hardboiled heroines and solidified the prototype in subsequent sequels. Rounding out the cast and crew, cameraman Derek Vanlint and composer Jerry Goldsmith propel the emotions relentlessly from one visual horror to the next.
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Boulevard Nights (1979)
"Boulevard Nights" had its genesis in a screenplay by UCLA student Desmond Nakano about Mexican-American youth and the lowrider culture. Director Michael Pressman and cinematographer John Bailey shot the film in the barrios of East Los Angeles with the active participation of the local community (including car clubs and gang members). This street-level strategy using mostly non-professional actors produced a documentary-style depiction of the tough choices faced by Chicano youth as they come of age and try to escape or navigate gang life ("Two brothers...the street was their playground and their battleground"). In addition to "Boulevard Nights," this era featured several films chronicling youth gangs and rebellion — "The Warriors" (1979), "Over the Edge" (1979), "Walk Proud" (1979) and "The Outsiders" (1983). The film faced protests and criticism from some Latinos who saw outsider filmmakers, albeit well-intentioned, adopting an anthropological perspective with an excessive focus on gangs and violent neighborhoods. Nevertheless, "Boulevard Nights" stands out as a pioneering snapshot of East L.A. and enjoys semi-cult status in the lowrider community.
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Powers of Ten (1978)
From The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention
In some ways as much a math exercise as an avant-garde film, "Powers of Ten" was produced by visionary design duo Charles and Ray Eames. Their short film makes excellent use of the film medium to convey concepts of scale, time and distance. Beginning with the shot of a young couple enjoying a picnic, an overhead camera, positioned one meter from its subject, slowly begins to withdraw in increments of 10 x 10—10 meters every 10 seconds. With time, the couple becomes just specs in the distance as they are dwarfed first by their neighborhood, then their city, then their continent, and then the planet. The film later reverses and zooms in, eventually reaching the molecular level. Billed at the beginning as "a film about the relative size of things in the universe," at the conclusion of its nine minutes, "Powers of Ten" has revealed the world simultaneously as both a very big and very small place.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/powers_of_ten.pdf
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National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
John Landis directs the escapades of a misfit group of fraternity members who challenge the dean and the establishment. The cast includes John Belushi, Tom Hulse, Tim Mattheson, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon and Donald Sutherland. It is the first film produced by National Lampoon, the most popular humor magazine on college campuses in the mid-1970s. "Animal House" received mixed reviews but several critics immediately recognized its appeal, one dubbing it "low humor of a high order."
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Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter's first commercially successful film not only became his most famous work, but it also ushered in the dawn of the slasher film. However, "Halloween," unlike many later films of that genre, creates a chilling tension with minimal blood and gore. The setting is Halloween night, and homicidal maniac Michael Myers has escaped from his mental institution and is hunting teenagers in his hometown of Haddonfield, Ill. Although the numerous imitations and elements of the genre are now considered a cliché, Carpenter's style of point-of-view shots, tense editing and haunting piano score make "Halloween" uniquely artistic, frightening and a horror film keystone.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/halloween.pdf
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The Deer Hunter (1978)
The ravages of the Vietnam War will take their toll on soldier Robert DeNiro. Library of Congress Collection.
Michael Cimino's astonishing epic is renowned for its portrayal of the effects of the Vietnam War on working class Americans. The structure of the film contrasts the environments of home and war and how the three main characters are changed by the latter setting. Its gut-wrenching sequences of the use of Russian roulette by Vietnamese soldiers are notorious and gripping despite their historical inaccuracy. However, the heartbreaking performances of Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken are what truly breathe life into this film and the generation that inspired it.
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Days of Heaven (1978)
An accountant (Bob Wilson) consults with a farmer (Sam Shepard) about his property. Library of Congress Collection.
Acknowledging the sublime cinematography of Nÿstor Almendros and Haskell Wexler, "Days of Heaven" is often called one of the most beautiful films ever made, an impressionist painting for the screen. The wheat fields and prairies of the Texas Panhandle—filmed in Alberta—shine and undulate in wind currents and storms, framing the tale of a love triangle (Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard) fated to end badly. The dialogue is spare, punctuating an elegiac score by Ennio Morricone and haunting narration by Linda Manz, who speaks from a child's point of view. Following this film (his second after "Badlands"), director Terrence Malick disappeared from public view for 20 years, returning in 1998 with "The Thin Red Line."
National Film Registry Year by Year
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Raging Bull (1980)
Hard hitting is the character, hard hitting is the film. Martin Scorsese painted a visceral portrait of prizefighter Jake LaMotta, and Robert DeNiro fleshed out that portrait, literally and figuratively. DeNiro famously gained 60 lbs. for the role, donned a prosthetic nose and walked away with an Academy Award. DeNiro adroitly captures the fighter's success in the ring and contrasts it to a personal life full of rage, jealousy, and suspicion which ultimately left LaMotta destitute, alone, and seeking redemption. Scorsese's vision is expertly executed by Thelma Schoonmaker's editing of cinematographer Michael Chapman's footage. Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarity give Oscar-nominated performances.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/raging_bull.pdf